 January 31, Wednesday |
 | Beta Questions: we made a FAQ -Elv'eng |  |
| Melantus made a quite intresting post on the UO Boards, just follow this link UO Discussions, it contain information about UO3D Beta order's and other quite intresting questions. |
| January 30, Tuesday |
| Oh no, 'tis the beta! Take cover! -Melissa | |
Or get your mouse finger and browser in ultra-fast condition and get ready to be one of the 30,000 people in the first beta.
This is the page you want to have open at twelve o'clock (Noon, GMT) tomorrow. |
I have been trying to send you emails for a few days, but I am not sure have you got any from me. So could please contact me at caravan@lemming.org.
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| January 29, Monday |
| Ultima Online: Third Dawn Beta Test -Elv'eng | |
Found this on the http://www.uo.com site:
Ultima Online: Third Dawn Beta Test Jan 26 2001 4:28PM CST (GMT -06:00)
It’s almost time! We are currently targeting to launch the Ultima Online: Third Dawn Beta Test signup during the week of January 29th (CST). During that week, we’ll open the Third Dawn Beta CD website where a limited amount of 30,000 beta CDs will be available for order.
We will be opening beta ordering at three different start times throughout a 24-hour period to allow UO customers from around the world the opportunity to order a beta CD at a convenient local time. For each start time, there will be a limit of 10,000 CDs available.
During the ordering period, players with active Ultima Online accounts (in good standing) will be able to order an Ultima Online: Third Dawn Beta CD for the price of shipping and handling. Players participating in the Beta test will be required to sign a Beta Tester Confidentiality agreement. This is a closed beta test limited to 30,000 participants. However, there will be additional open beta opportunities at a later date.
We will release specific availability times and dates approximately 24 hours in advance.
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| January 28, Sunday |
| Hyper-Inflation introduced as a new skill -Tomf | |
Interesting little thread has sprung up on the Origin boards about effects of a rapid decrease in the value of gold on the price of consumer goods.
In other news: More and more games delayed because writing and reading pages of code isn't as interesting as surfing for p0rn. |
| January 26, Friday |
| The link above will lead you to see amazing work of the winners. The link is fixed now, so it works. |
| January 25, Thursday |
| We are almost done with reviewing everything, I am sure results are at this page by the end of this week (probably sooner). |
I am HUGE fan of the Thief the Dark Project series, so I feel it is important to cover that too. After all we do all play single player games too....right?
The Interview |
| January 24, Wednesday |
| "The greater kragling bites you for 18 damage..." -Melissa | |
...make a save vs. death magic.
AD&D veterans rejoice! Wizards of the Coast, current owner of TSR Inc., has made available online TONS of old D&D and AD&D supplements, including such legendary classics as Palace of the Silver Princess, Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claws and Cult of the Dragon, just to name a few.
Also, there's new stuff being added constantly, like the entire Dark Sun Revised Campaign set, which will be available from the 2nd of February onwards.
The books are in PDF format and therefore most of them are quite hefty downloads.
Here's the good stuff.
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Taxidermy Kits will allow players to use corpses of certain creatures to create trophy deeds, which can be used in houses to generate a wall-mounted trophy.
Taxidermy Kits will be found on NPC Tanners, usually found within “leather and hide” shops in towns. Only master and above carpenters can use the kit itself, as those without master or grandmaster status in carpentry will be unable to figure out the kit’s workings.
A master carpenter is defined by UO as a player with 90.1 or above base carpentry skill (base skill, visible by clicking “show real” in the skill window).
The player will need the following items to create a trophy:
Taxidermy Kit
10 boards
corpse of either:
Orc
Gorilla
Troll
Brown Bear
Polar Bear
Great Hart
Big Fish (note that “big fish” that have been stacked with other fish will not be useable by the taxidermy kit)
When the player with enough carpentry skill and materials listed above uses the taxidermy kit, they will get a targeting cursor. This cursor is targeted on the corpse of the creature (or big fish) intended to be the trophy. Thus, the player will need to be at the corpse of one of these creatures to successfully use the taxidermy kit. The taxidermy kit will disappear upon successful use and a deed for a trophy will be placed in the player’s pack.
The player attempting to place the trophy will need to be a owner or co-owner of the house. The trophy will need to be locked down to prevent decay or other players taking it. Double clicking the trophy if it is not locked down will cause it to return to deed form in the player’s backpack. |
| January 22, Monday |
| Time to learn your mantras -Melissa | |
Origin has finally figured out another use for the Shrines of Virtue (yes, you know, those places with the ankhs). A karma locking feature will be added and once a character acquires negative karma, s/he will need to meditate at a shrine before being able to regain a positive karma title. Also, characters with positive karma may lock it at the level they wish.
Looks like a very nice tool for roleplayers. The dev team hasn't forgotten us after all.
Read about the details of the karma lock system here. |
| UO3D contest is now officially closed. We will be going over all the wonderful stories and art we got. The winners will be announched in couple of days. |
| January 21, Sunday |
| Make your own throphies, soon at shard near you. -Videric | |
There has been many reports about Taxidemie kits being sold at Vol shard currently. Basicly what you can do with those is to make a throphy of certain creatures. Orc, Troll, Gorilla, bear, polar bear and Deer are the ones I think. Also this is probably the way to use the big Fish to make fish trophy.
Downside is that the kit costs 85,000 gp and can apparently be only used with carpenters with more than 90% skill. Other rumour is that it need both GM Tailor and GM Carpentry. I was at least able to see it on vendor with 90% skill, so first report is probably true. In any case this is VERY good addition.
News Flash: You can only use the kit once, so it will indeed be very expensive to make even one! Also accoring to reports the deed is re-deedable, which is a good thing.
Here is the throphies that are already in UO art file:
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| January 20, Saturday |
| Courant and Traveller merge together. -Elv'eng | |
Hello.
No the Courant isnt dead. We have just worked towards a better idea, atleast thats what me and Videric think. Insted of posting same news on two sites, we're now just posting one.
There was ofcourse other resons we did this, one was that Courant didnt recive as much news as it can get, nor did the "Britannian Today" get. Also its about traffic, Tales of a Traveller main page gets about 7x more visitors then Courant, so hopefully with this ide we'll be able to get more people to see the Traveller/Courant pages, and hopefully send in more news to us.
Myself (Elv'eng) is still the "leader" of the Courant site, while Videric is the "leader" of Tales of the Traveller. So not much have changed there.
So, welcome to the new Courant pages, witch can be located at http://traveller.lemming.org |
From Eidolon when it was asked for reason why there is no "game created" books on Trammel:
There is no "in game" reason really. Books are spawn much like monsters. I will have to assume there is something gone wrong with that spawn. I will bring it up at the Dev meeting this week, see what I can find out.
-Eidolon
UO boards |
| January 19, Friday |
About those Stratics screenshots.
First of all, I find Stratics listing all the monsters a bit odd, saying Exodus is just a new type of daemon? Exodus is "son" of Mondain and Minax and is by no means just a daemon or bread of daemons...he is unique and the main villain of U3. But in all fairness I think Stratics just wants to make statics of everything, not depending on is it NPC or Human play plot character.
And about looks, do notice they are taken with Granny player (or what ever it is). The screenshots are NOT accelerated and therefore do not look as smooth as in-game!
You find the screenshots at uo.stratics.com if you wish to see the creatures before encountering them in game.
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| January 18, Thursday |
Few issues seem to surround the veteran rewards so be careful!
First of all, apparently both Flaming skull and Banners decay quite quickly if not locked down to you house! So remember to lock them down!
Secondly, if the rewards come in extream lag, consider taking one reward at time (wait that it appears to your backpack) before taking another. There is cases where people chose compleatly other rewards and ended up with furniture tubs. So be careful, as it is not clear will Origin help you if you get wrong rewards because of what seems to be a bug in the system. |
| January 16, Tuesday |
Naming guide has received a lot of new Male and Female names.
Factions of War has been added to History at the Lore section.
Keeonean's profile has been updated a bit.
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| January 15, Monday |
| There we have it, my point excatly! -Videric | |
Eidolon stated this on the UO boards about Resurection:
That is just one thing that you have to take as a game mechanic. Making death permanent would be quite harsh. Trying to spin why you can keep res'ing into fiction just gets messy. It's just a spot where you have to suspend your disbelief a bit more.
-Eidolon
As a note this is how I have personally been role-playing for ages. Resurection is too messy IC thing and treating "UO death" as Major injury is much better when thinking of RP story. Death (permanent of course) is something that is always part of great stories, specially the fear of it.
UO boards |
| January 14, Sunday |
| Competition deadline extended for few days -Videric | |
| I extended the deadline to Sunday the 21st to give artists a bit more time, as some have only chance to work on weekends. |
There is a lot of fiction related posts that have been commented by Eidolon again.
First there is about Gargoyles, Codex and Facets:
UOboards
About Factions, specially about the Shadowlords:
UOboards
Lastly about UO:R storyline and its troubles:
UOboards
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| January 13, Saturday |
| Yeah it is true, we are giving 3rd Dawn Alpha CDs as rewards for the competition! Read more by clicking the banner... |
| January 12, Friday |
From Melantus
We initially don't see what the problem might be, but we are still trying to track down the reports of Europa connection problems. What I need is some information from the players actually experiencing the problem:
Where are you playing from? (city, country)
What ISP (internet provider) are you using?
If you do not wish to post that info here, please feel free to email it to me. I will get this information to our network administrators and we will do more tracking down of this problem. My email address is below. If you can post a traceroute here, that would be very good. Just those with the connection problems to Europa please in this thread, not other traceroutes. thanks.
Melantus
Online Community Coordinator
Ultima Online
Melantus@uo.com
The original post:
UOboards |
| January 10, Wednesday |
New website for UO europe seems to be online, and looks great. Much better than the old one in my opinion.
check it out:
UO Europa |
| January 9, Tuesday |
Calandryll, the Man with a Mission, has a word or two to say about the UO: Third Dawn texture files that have been floating around for the past couple of days.
The point of his message is: don't get too excited about the art, we may not be using most of it. At least not yet.
Entire post is here. |
| January 8, Monday |
Stratics been busy extracting files from UO3D. One of the most interesting textures is the Shadowlord! Yes indeed, it strongly suggests that the creatures are finally going to appaear big time. (probably only in Seer/main plot).
I have to say I do love the textures, and I hope there will be option to increase texture resolution in the final game, as the textures so far seem a bit blur on the models.
Small addition: I wonder what those "Skimpy Outfits" are all about?*grins*
Anyway, here is a direct link:
http://uo.stratics.com/pics/uo3d/textures.shtml
And feel free to post on our forum if you have comments or additional information... |
An interesting new item is available on the Architect NPCs of the Alpha 3rd Dawn server. Rumour has it that this item, when used inside your house, brings up a menu that allows you to rotate, raise or lower a locked down item within the house.
So no more resorting to cheap tricks to get those lanterns hanging on the walls! More on this item when I receive my Alpha CD and gather enough gold for a house. :)
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| January 7, Sunday |
| Interview with Richard Garriot -Videric | |
| January 6, Saturday |
| I have few new articles to the Britannian History in the Lore section. I hope you like them. |
| January 3, Wednesday |
| Lord British and how fast the time goes... -Videric | |
First what Eidolon, who has been quite busy at boards lately, told when asked what is the current deal with Lord British:
Since Insomnia has me in a death grip (it's 3:48 am as i type this) I will answers these questions ... as best I can.
First I am not going to talk about when LB will be back in the game. There are some mitigating factors I have to tend with on that matter.
1. Like Blackthorne ( who acutally traveled to Minax's shard to do some snooping... http://town.uo.com/bnn/article_69.html) Shamino was wrapped in a very powerful magic disguise. It was ceraintly he not LB who was captured.
2. Yes he suddenly escapes from Minax. Seems a bit odd I agree. Wonder what's up with that ? 8)
3. Suicide mission. Possibly. Shamino is the embodiment of Spirituality, and a dear friend to LB. He would happily lay down his life for his king. Julia, the companion which matches with Sacrifice would have been better but she is already dead. Having been killed during the terror of the FoA.
4. It was LB. The real deal.
Great conspiracy theory though. 8)
Now time for me to nit pick just a little. Again I like your train of thought, but my only nit picking is bit on Dupre. Dupre was in the game long before Trinsic. He was used for some other things in the past, so was Shamino. The "people" of the land know them for who they are. We have to suspend disblief a wee bit more here than normal and then assume that most of you all know who they are IC and OOC.
Beyond that, again I say nice thinking! You raise some good points that may never be answered...or will they? 8)
(ps. all typos are spelling mistakes are property of my sleep disorder. Any reuse or public re broadcast of those typos with out the strict written consent of the OSI is illegal) 8)
And then about how fast time goes in UO from Eidolon:
Time is a tricky thing. The 12/1 ratio is way to big for fiction. I use the 5 year rule to keep some sanity within time lines in UO. I need to sit down with Sage and discuss this actually. I like to think of the 12/1 as a game mechanic seperate from the actual time. That game mechanic figures out all that the vendor must be paid stuff ,etc. Let me talk to Sage about this before I discuss it any further.
Rather interesting indeed. As usual, post your comments here: http://traveller.lemming.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID1/6.html
The original UOboard posts can be seen here:
http://boards.uo.com/cgi-bin/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=role&Number=294966&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5
and
http://boards.uo.com/cgi-bin/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=role&Number=295034&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5
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| January 2, Tuesday |
This was stated by Eidolon about the Lost Lands. How many of you knew it is underground and has artificial sun?
1.Yep it's underground. In those journals though it mentions the sunrise just before the Ophidians and Terrathans begin to fight. Interesting eh? The implementation of T2A, the "lost lands" as they are called since, well plainly they were never given a name. It is supposed to be under ground. Then how do we have plants etc? Good question! There are some real inconsistencies there. It nags at me, I assure you. It became an issue when I was working on Khaldun. I have a project I am slowly working on that might help clear some of that and some other things up in the way of fiction for T2A.
2.Yes Delucia and Papua were both built before we get there in the game.
3.Yep the people who live there moved there long before British became a king.
4.How were they created? One can only wonder. Why and how did people originally go down there? Again, one can wonder. I don’t rightfully have answers for those questions. Again, I have my project though. 8)
5.Minax is down there now using the area south of Papua as a base of operations hence the faction building. She cannot go back to her “home” facet since it’s now a barren wasteland that makes Felucca look like a party.
6.As for the journals not being posted on the current site. I hope to correct that too eventually. All part of my pet project.
As for pet projects they take a back seat to more pressing matters but I work on them when I have free time.
The Original post:
http://boards.uo.com/cgi-bin/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=role&Number=293464&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5
So did you know all that, or is there anything else that makes you wonder? Why not drop a line at our board, that is why it is there...
http://traveller.lemming.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID1/5.html |
Happy New Year to everyone, welcome to 2001.
Ultima Lore section has received an update from the Robin the Bard. Ballade of a hero that Robin wrote can be found under songs in the Ultima Lore section.
"Hail to all, friends, I' m Robin, minstrel of the Order of the Loremasters.This is the story of one my Great Friend that unlucky now is not with us.He was a great hero for me and I want that his name will remember from all. I hope that you can help me..."
-Robin the Bard
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